2560x1600 - Gaming Performance

At the more extreme resolution of 2560x1600 the Radeon HD 5970 is able to stretch its legs and put its GPUs to work. With an average of 94fps and a minimum of 70fps the dual-chip card led the GeForce GTX 580 by a 9% margin. The GTX 580 itself was 15% faster than the GTX 480, while the Radeon HD 5870 beat the GeForce GTX 470 by a 5% margin.

The GeForce GTX 470 barely broke the 60fps barrier, meaning that just the top five graphics cards were able to handle 2560x1600. The GeForce GTX 285 and Radeon HD 6870 averaged 52fps, while the GeForce GTX 460 managed 51fps. The Radeon HD 5850 spat out 49fps, making it a fraction faster than the old GeForce GTX 275 which rendered 48fps.

Beyond that the rest of the field really struggled at this extreme resolution, though this is not likely going to be an issue as we do not imagine many gamers playing on a 30” LCD will be using anything less than a GeForce GTX 460 anyway.